Mar 18, 2009

This blog will continue to be developed, but the emphasis will likely change to conform to my evolving interests. I am just as interested in personality, interaction, compatibility, and society as I always have been and will continue to write about these things, but approaching these topics from a primarily socionic standpoint is losing its attraction for me. Socionics trains one to learn to recognize and put a name to important distinctions between things, but ultimately, a socionic explanation is not really an explanation in the scientific sense.

Furthermore, socionically expressed "conclusions" cannot be proven, which makes rational dialogue problematic. Without a body of empirical data, the only way to convey "truth" is to express views in as logical and understandable a form as possible. Yet, even the most logically conveyed view in socionics has no hard and fast data to support it. As a result, it becomes very hard to distinguish between correct and incorrect views. Instead, people gravitate towards the views that they can understand and relate to rather than to the ones that are best supported by evidence. With no one able to counter false ideas with sound data, crackpots and ideologues flourish. Even those who are more "right" than others have no real means to prove their points, and are easily embroiled in personal attacks and counterattacks to defend their position. The personality of the socionist becomes more important than his professional competency, which is impossible to objectively ascertain anyways.

In light of this, developing socionics in the traditional vein, using conventional socionic terms and practices, is becoming something of a dead-end for me. I dislike being able to counter opposing views or lack of understanding only with carefully chosen words. I would prefer to have a more real and tangible object of study that speaks for itself, rather than having to rely so heavily on semantics. As anyone with much experience at socionics forums can attest, semantic misunderstandings are the bane of socionics as an object of study and discussion. I tire of the dependence upon semantics, of the need to constantly rephrase things to make them more understandable and overcome people's objections.

So, at least in the foreseeable future, this blog will contain much more information about scientific research in the area of mental and psychological differences between people and why these differences might be significant. This blog will no longer be about teaching socionics to people.